1997 Mitsubishi 3000gt Auto Low Miles (like Toyota Supra,acura Rsx,nissan 300zx) on 2040-cars

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Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

Junkyard Gem: 1994 Mitsubishi Diamante ES Sedan

Once the decade of the 1990s got rolling, the Lexus LS400, Toyota Cressida, Infiniti Q45, Acura Legend and Mazda 929 had proven that big Japanese-made luxury sedans could rack up respectable sales in the United States. Mitsubishi dove into that competition starting with the 1992 model year, when the Diamante arrived on our shores. Here's one of those early Diamantes, found in an Oklahoma City car graveyard recently. Mitsubishi had been selling big, swanky Debonairs at home since the middle 1960s, but that car was never sold new in North America (though a Debonair-related Hyundai, the XG300/XG350, did show up here). The Diamante was based on an enlarged Galant/Sigma platform and was available here as a pillared hardtop four-door sedan (in which there is a narrow B pillar but the door windows are frameless) and as a station wagon. The US-market sedan was built in Japan, while the wagon came from Australia. The Diamante's price tag made it tempting for American buyers considering Japanese luxury sedans. The base ES sedan listed for $25,525 in 1994, which comes to about $53,097 in 2023 dollars. Meanwhile, the Mazda 929 started at $30,500 ($63,446 now), the Acura Legend sedan cost $33,800 ($70,311 now), the Infiniti Q45 listed at $49,450 ($102,866 now) and the Lexus LS400 was $51,200 ($106,507 now). The higher-zoot Diamante LS (which cost $32,500 in 1994) got a twin-cam 6G72 V6 driving the front wheels with 202 horsepower, but today's Junkyard Gem is a base ES and it has the SOHC 6G72 with just 175 horses. Mitsubishi built Diamantes with manual transmissions, but we didn't get those cars on our side of the Pacific. A four-speed automatic transmission was mandatory equipment in North American Diamantes. This car didn't quite make it to 140,000 miles during its career. It appears that this car passed through the hands of both Fred Jones and a lesser-known outfit called Amigoland Motors during its life. This generation of Diamante remained on sale in the United States through the 1996 model year, but sales never measured up to Mitsubishi's hopes. The wagon got the axe after 1995, at which time the ES sedan became a fleet-sales-only machine. For 1996, all Diamantes sold here were fleet cars. For 1997, a new generation of Diamante showed up; sales continued through 2004. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. For Mitsubishi's diamond anniversary, the precious Diamante (with cheap lease terms).

Ever wonder how to really pronounce Japanese automaker names?

People tend to get very set in their ways when it comes to the pronunciation of words. Just look at the endless debates over whether or not to say the final 'e' in Porsche (which you should in terms of correct German enunciation). Or the argument about whether to follow the British convention and give the 'u' in Jaguar a special delivery or to say the 'ua' diphthong as more of a 'w' sound, as usually happens in the US.
This short video doesn't answer either of those automotive questions, but it does allow a native Japanese speaker to demonstrate the accepted pronunciations for several, major automakers from the country. One benefit is that it clears up the occasional debate over whether Nissan should be said with a long or short 'i' sound. Also, listen closely to how the female host says Mazda as Matsuda, the way it's actually said in the language. Even if this doesn't change the way you enunciate these brands, at least now you know the accurate way in Japanese.